3D Printing InfoPrinter comparison
Creality K1 SE vs ELEGOO Neptune 4
Compare hardware, build volume, printing specifications, dated prices and sources.
2 selected · all documented properties
Open these two in the interactive comparisonMore Creality K1 SE comparisonsMore ELEGOO Neptune 4 comparisons
| Property | Creality K1 SECOREXY | ELEGOO Neptune 4BEDSLINGER |
|---|---|---|
| Identity | ||
| Brand | Creality | ELEGOO |
| Class | COREXY | BEDSLINGER |
| Identity & Market | ||
| Manufacturer & exact marketed model name (verify the exact product identity first) | Creality K1 SE[1] | ELEGOO Neptune 4 (spec table "Product Model: Neptune 4")[2] |
| Release date (announcement and actual shipping) | Not documented | Listed on the ELEGOO US store from 27 May 2023 (Shopify publish date)[3] |
| Street price (USD; dated snapshot per entry) | Creality's K1-series comparison page lists $359 for the K1 SE (Aug 2026); it does not appear as its own product on the Creality US store printer sitemap, so no separate live store price could be recorded[1] | $219.00 on us.elegoo.com, Aug 2026, against a compare-at price of $249.00; both the Ribbon-Cable and Type-C printhead variants are the same price[3] |
| Variants & sibling models — and how to tell them apart (spec-contamination risk) | The cheapest K1. It keeps the 220 mm cube volume, CoreXY frame and 600 mm/s claim but drops a lot: hotend body is PA+30%GF rather than all-metal, the build plate is epoxy rather than PEI, there is no air filter, no chamber heating entry at all in Creality's table, no foreign-object or failure detection, and the AI camera, remote monitoring and time-lapse are optional. Its filament list stops at Hyper PLA, PLA, PETG and TPU. It does get the steel-tipped nozzle integrated with the heatbreak and dynamically balanced fans, which the base K1 does not[1] | Two printhead variants of the same machine are sold under one SKU - "Ribbon-Cable Version" and "Type-C Version" - which use different printhead parts. Within the Neptune 4 family the numbers diverge sharply and get mixed up constantly: Neptune 4 is 225 x 225 x 265 mm with a 110 C bed and 20000 mm/s2; the Plus is 320 x 320 x 385 mm with a 100 C bed and 12000 mm/s2; the Max is 420 x 420 x 480 mm with an 85 C bed and only 8000 mm/s2. The Neptune 4 Pro is a separate model again[3][2][4][5] |
| Market position: superseded? successor announced? | Not documented | Still listed in ELEGOO's US store Neptune section in Aug 2026 alongside the 4 Pro, 4 Plus and 4 Max, but ELEGOO's current development is on the Centauri line[6] |
| Physical & Frame | ||
| Build volume X×Y×Z (mm) — advertised vs actually usable | 220 x 220 x 250 mm[1] | 225 x 225 x 265 mm; the PEI platform itself is 235 x 235 mm[2] |
| Machine footprint (mm) & clearance needed (cable/spool overhang) | 355 x 355 x 482 mm[1] | 475 x 445 x 515 mm. ELEGOO separately publishes a "maximum size for machine activity" of 475 x 550 x 735 mm including rack and tray - the depth to allow for is 550 mm, not 445 mm[2] |
| Net weight (kg) | Not documented | 8.3 kg net, 10.6 kg gross[2] |
| Frame construction & material | Not documented | CNC-machined aluminium extrusion frame[2] |
| Enclosure: open / enclosed; panel material; door/lid | Enclosed body, but Creality's comparison table leaves chamber heating blank for the K1 SE where the K1, K1C and K1 Max are listed as passive heating[1] | Open frame, no enclosure[2] |
| Kinematics & Motion Hardware | ||
| Kinematics (bedslinger i3 / CoreXY / other) | CoreXY (Creality's own K1-series comparison table)[1] | Cartesian i3 bed-slinger[2] |
| Z-axis: leadscrew count & type, sync mechanism, anti-backlash | Not documented | Two lead screws (the Neptune 4 Plus and Max add two tie rods to the same arrangement)[7] |
| Stepper drivers (exact model e.g. TMC2209; UART/SPI; sensorless homing?) | Not documented | "Silent Drive (All Axes)" is all ELEGOO publishes; no driver part number is given[7] |
| Speed & Acceleration | ||
| Max print speed (claimed, mm/s) | 600 mm/s max printing speed (manufacturer claim). Creality's own footnote says the 600 mm/s figure was achieved in Creality Lab and that the typical speed is 300 mm/s[1][8] | 500 mm/s max toolhead speed (manufacturer claim); the Neptune 4 Plus page for the same family states a recommended 250 mm/s[2][4] |
| Recommended/typical print speed | 300 mm/s typical printing speed with 12000 mm/s2 typical acceleration, stated by Creality alongside the 600 mm/s headline[1] | 250 mm/s recommended printing speed against the 500 mm/s ceiling (ELEGOO's own figure)[7] |
| Max acceleration (claimed, mm/s²) | 20000 mm/s2 max acceleration (manufacturer claim)[1] | 20000 mm/s2 max toolhead acceleration (manufacturer claim) - notably higher than the Plus at 12000 and the Max at 8000, because the moving mass is smaller[2][4][5] |
| Extruder | ||
| Type (direct drive / bowden) & design name | Dual-gear direct-drive extruder[1] | Dual-gear direct extruder with 2 fans[7] |
| Hotend & Nozzle | ||
| Hotend design (proprietary/standard; quick-swap mechanism?) | Hotend body in PA+30% glass fibre with a steel-tipped nozzle integrated with the heatbreak - not the all-metal assembly of the K1C[1] | Brass nozzle, 0.4 mm, with a copper and titanium-alloy heat break - the Plus and Max use a titanium-alloy heat break only[7] |
| Max nozzle temp claimed AND firmware max temp limit (both values) | 300 C claimed max nozzle temperature[1] | 300 C claimed max nozzle temperature[2] |
| Heated Bed & Surface | ||
| Max bed temp claimed AND firmware limit | 100 C max heatbed temperature[1] | 110 C max heated bed temperature[2] |
| Bed surface (material, texture, coating), single/double-sided | Epoxy flexible build plate - different from the PEI plate on the K1C[1] | PEI spring steel sheet, now upgraded by ELEGOO to a dual-sided textured PEI + PLA-specific surface[7] |
| Leveling & Z-Offset | ||
| Auto bed leveling: probe technology (inductive / strain gauge / load cell / touch probe) | Not documented | Manual levelling combined with 121-point auto-levelling; no full-auto calibration on this model[7] |
| Filament Handling & Detection | ||
| Filament runout sensor (type, location) | Not documented | Filament detection fitted; power-loss resume printing supported[2] |
| Cooling & Air Handling | ||
| Part-cooling fan(s): count, size, ducting design | Dynamically balanced closed-loop part-cooling fan and dynamically balanced PWM hotend fan; no air filter[1] | Not documented |
| Electronics & Power | ||
| Mainboard model & MCU (exact chip markings if teardowns exist) | Not documented | ELEGOO describes it only as a "Klipper High-Speed Quiet Motherboard" - no board model or MCU published[7] |
| Input voltage (110/220 V, switch or auto) | Not documented | 115/230 V, 50/60 Hz on the product page; ELEGOO's compare page gives 110-120 / 220-240 VAC 50/60 Hz[2][7] |
| Total rated power draw | 350 W rated power[1] | 310 W rated power, 24 V output[7] |
| Firmware & Openness | ||
| Firmware base & current version (Klipper fork / Marlin fork / proprietary) | Open-source Creality OS, a Klipper derivative (CrealityOfficial/K1_Series_Klipper on GitHub, GPL-3.0)[9][10][1] | Klipper (ELEGOO names the system "Klipper" outright for the Neptune 4 series, rather than the ELEGOO OS branding used on the Centauri machines)[7][11] |
| Connectivity, UI & Camera | ||
| Display: size, type, touch? | Not documented | 4.3-inch colour capacitive touch screen[7] |
| On-device UI capabilities (model preview, per-object controls, etc.) | Colour touch UI; remote monitoring and time-lapse are optional because they require the optional AI camera[1] | Colour capacitive touch UI; ElegooSlicer recommended, with Orca and Cura also supported[7] |
| WiFi (band/standard), Ethernet, USB ports, SD/flash-drive | Wi-Fi[1] | LAN and USB file transfer; no Wi-Fi is listed for the base Neptune 4, unlike the Plus (USB/LAN/Wi-Fi) and Max (Wi-Fi/USB/WLAN)[2][4][5] |
| Materials Support | ||
| Officially supported filament list | Hyper PLA, PLA, PETG, TPU only[1] | PLA, TPU, PETG, ABS, ASA, Nylon[2] |
| Safety | ||
| Thermal runaway protection (verify in firmware source if at all possible) | Not verified directly. Creality's published firmware for the K1 series (CrealityOfficial/K1_Series_Klipper, GPL-3.0) is described by Creality itself as a clone of upstream Klipper, and upstream Klipper ships the verify_heater thermal-runaway check; whether Creality's stock printer.cfg enables it, and with what thresholds, was not checked here[9][10] | Not documented |
| Noise & Power Consumption | ||
| Noise: claimed dB and independently measured dB (distance/method) | Not documented | Operating sound published as 60 dB or less - a manufacturer figure with no distance or method stated, so it is not comparable with an independently measured reading[7] |
| Reliability, Support & Ecosystem | ||
| Warranty length & support reputation (evidence, not vibes) | Creality's US store states "Up to 12-Month Warranty", a 14-day return and refund window and "Lifetime Customer Support" on its printer product pages. The "up to" wording means the term is not uniform across parts[12] | 12 months on brand-new machines and parts, but ELEGOO's own table excludes a long list of parts from that: PEI plate / build plate / nozzle kit / PTFE tube / heater / thermistor / hot end / packaging / manual / tools carry no warranty at all, and the extruder, extruder kit and printhead kit get 6 months. Certified pre-owned machines carry no warranty[13] |
Manufacturer claims, independent measurements, packages and test conditions retain their source wording. FDM linear speed and resin vertical speed use different units and are not directly comparable. Unknown values are marked “Not documented”. Prices and source dates remain historical snapshots; check the linked guide for product details. Differences highlight text, not a universal winner.
Sources for this comparison
- Creality - Compare K1 Flagship Series (K1 / K1C / K1 Max / K1 SE side-by-side spec table) creality.com · 2026-08 · vendor
- ELEGOO Neptune 4 product page (Specification table) us.elegoo.com · 2026-08 · vendor
- ELEGOO Neptune 4 Shopify product JSON (variant prices and store publish date) us.elegoo.com · 2026-08 · vendor
- ELEGOO Neptune 4 Plus product page (full specification table) us.elegoo.com · 2026-08 · vendor
- ELEGOO Neptune 4 Max product page (Specification table) us.elegoo.com · 2026-08 · vendor
- ELEGOO US store 3D printers collection (current line-up, Aug 2026) us.elegoo.com · 2026-08 · vendor
- ELEGOO compare-products page, which embeds the full per-model specification JSON for every Neptune, Centauri and OrangeStorm machine us.elegoo.com · 2026-08 · vendor
- Creality K1C product page (full specification table) creality.com · 2026-08 · vendor
- GitHub API - CrealityOfficial/K1_Series_Klipper repository metadata ("clone from https://github.com/Klipper3d/klipper/", GPL-3.0, last push Dec 2025) api.github.com · 2026-08 · doc
- GitHub - CrealityOfficial organisation repositories (per-model firmware sources) github.com · 2026-08 · doc
- ELEGOO Centauri Carbon product page (full specification table) us.elegoo.com · 2026-08 · vendor
- Creality US store - K1 3D Printer product page (live price, warranty and returns banner) store.creality.com · 2026-08 · vendor
- ELEGOO Refund & Warranty policy (warranty period table) us.elegoo.com · 2026-08 · vendor